Not a Pathy Q but a Nissan Q

[vidro]

My question does not involve a Pathy but does involve a Nissan.

I figure you guys are good enough and knowledgeable enough you can fix anything or at least have an answer to what might be possible.

Here it goes.

My daughter wrecked her 93 Nissan Altima this past Sunday, nothing major, nobody hurt.

 

what was her front end went under a pickup truck back bumper pushing in her grill, radiator and buckling up the hood and absolute disinagrating the back half of the headlights assemblies Amazing the actual lens part of the headlights survived without a scratch or crack

 

I went to the junk yard this morning and there is only 1 Altima with the front end still in tacked. It has the grill and the light assembly but the back housing part of the light assembly on the passenger side is cracked and there is something loose inside the housing, it is not the bulb.

I think a good epoxy will fix this housing but my question is how in the heck do you take this assembly apart?

I can see that there is four little clamps around the outside holding it together than there are the molded on “hook and tab” I do not know the legitimate words

I have removed the clamps and have pry up on the hooks to get them over the tab but this thing will still not come apart.

Any ideas?

[5523Pathfinder]

You will probably have to heat the epoxy and try to pry it apart. Ive seen people do this, but you may damage the housing or lens. If you do get it apart, you may not be able to seal it all the way and it may leak.

[mws]

First off, I'm delighted no one was hurt! One more gold star for the Nissan crash protection engineering team!

 

I suspect the stock assembly was sonically welded together to form a weather tight seal. It will be difficult to split open, but might be possible.

 

Just in case you weren't aware of this option, Rock Auto has brand new replacement assemblies for under $100. Not OE Nissan assemblies, but the ones I purchased for the pathy were close enough to OE fit and finish to be acceptable to me. Comparing side to side, I can see some differences, but they installed just fine and work fine.

Edited December 19, 2006 by mws

[Adam]

i'm honestly not sure at all how similar this is, but i had a set of BMW M Roadster headlights, and one had some fog in it, so i split it open, and the way i did it was i heated up my oven, i can't remember what temp, maybe 200-250 or so, heated it up and let the lights get really warm, it was enough to make the glue soft, and i was able to pry them apart, then i got the old glue out, i think with a knife, and glued it all back together... gotta make sure you glue well, otherwise it'll have the fog in it like the lights i had had initially...

[88pathoffroad]

There are a ton of headlights for that car on Ebay.

 

http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?f...ltima+headlight

[vidro]

Yepper, you nailed it.

Hair dryer seem to do the trick in taking it apart. Had to scrape out the “goo” to get it back together.

Yes I will eventually have to buy a new good one sometime soon because this thing is definitely not weather proofed.

I couldn’t see spending close to 100 bucks perside on a vehicle that might have had more problems than just lighting issue.

But with junk yard parts and help from some good friends she is coming together nicely.

There will still be some noticeable body damage but this is a 19 year old’s car and it is 13 years old, still a good car BUT….. I think you get my point.